Are you ready for another one of my nice big healthy
doses of pain. The kind of pain you have to feel to gain. I return once again
to the dismalosity of passive crossover parts juxtaposed to the refinement
of your tube electronics.

All of you savvy tube savant are searching for the Wholey
Harmonic, as you should be, swapping jive about tubes, circuits and parts,
and then when you step back and take a nice relaxing puff on your Havana cigar
what do you see? Thousands of dollars worth of electronics generating a music
signal traveling down your speaker cables to your passive crossovers which
is hidden in shame because it is made up of $10 or less parts.

In my article "Lift Your Crossover Fog" I talked about
the benefit of getting your crossovers out of your speaker boxes and upgrading
the parts, and I got a fantastic response to this.

In the same way rust never sleeps, I never stop fishing
for more refinement and I came across the A/S TOBIAS JENSEN capacitor (Denmark)
web site (www.jensencapacitors.suite.dk) and
ordered their catalog and they were kind enough to send me some samples of
their wax/paper dielectric copper foil inductors and their oil capacitors
for crossovers, which look like honey glazed slices of toast talk about
strange in a world of round yellow capacitors.

Why do single-ended triode fanatics choose oil caps as
coupling caps? Because plastic sounds like plastic, and any time you use a
plastic film capacitor you get a plastic film capacitor sound which is okay
if you like that flavor of capacitor coloration. To me plastic caps are too
close to the type of coloration that you get with transistors. Someone at
Jensen has got very good bat ears, because they clearly state that they don't
like the sound of plastic dielectric on their inductors, which is why they
use wax/paper and they are right. According to Hans Jensen, CEO of the
company Mr. Steen Dueland of the Copenhagen Hi fi Club, was the force majeur
behind this work. Congratulations Steen.

JENSEN is also a primary manufacturer of oil coupling
caps and are probably the company that is manufacturing the ones you are using.

PAUSE: Anyone who tells you that they are using a capacitor
that has no coloration, please tell them to contact me so that I can arrange
to get them a free hearing aid. The point being, once again, we must make
artistic choices in an imperfect world, like triodes versus pentodes, single-ended
vs. push/pull. No capacitor is perfect, and no measurement test with noise
will tell you how they will work with a music signal. I also want to warn
you against using any film cap that has multi-stranded wires.

I vote for the JENSEN path. So far these are the best
sounding foil inductors I have experienced, and the combination of JENSEN
foil inductors and oils caps compared to my previous combination of foil inductors
and polypropylene film is better in every regard. Please don't ask me to get
all emotional about the improve I hear. I hear it with both single-ended triodes
and with OTL amplifiers. There is greater clarity, harmonic authenticity,
and in a game of relatively, there is relatively a lot more of what I love
in music.

Okay I give up and it is quite shocking the difference
between the Jensen parts and the film caps and other brand of foil inductors
that using plastic film insulation. I am quite surprised at how there has
been a ascension of voluptuous wholeosity to the sound of my passive crossover.
Something that I only usually expect with a tube crossover. I am not saying
that I am equally the performance of a tube crossover but it is such
a big improvement over my already extremely high quality crossover parts..that
it is comparable to a major improvement in power supply which is expensive
and complicated.

Anyone who is using horn speakers must do the Jensen
transformation. If you can't do this retro-fit yourself find someone to do
it for you. Shall I say this another way it is probably equal to the
next upgrade in speaker quality.

If you electrostatic speaker has a crossover you
know what to do. I also can recommend this modification for all mini monitor
speakers and I am willing to bet you an 8 track tape that you will find that
what you love in these speakers is expanded.

As you know from my other articles I think that oil capacitors
are essential in the power supplies of tube amplifier, and now I extend that
opinion to speakers .if they are the quality of JENSEN.

When you see those ads in audio magazines in which speaker
companies show you pictures of their crossovers, what they are showing you
to a nice big bunch of cheap parts, and because no one, and let me repeat
that, because no one is talking about this subject, you might be impressed.
Don't be.

ONCE AGAIN MY ADVICE: Get your crossovers out of your
speakers. Just substitute the values of the inductors and capacitors with
Jensens. This means you will have to get a piece of plywood because these
parts are much bigger than what is normally used. This is a completely non-technical
upgrade, that I am certain will improve the quality of your aural matrix,
the way it improved mine.

I also think that anyone who is interested in the unique
beauty of directly heated triode is compelled to either use a tube crossover
or go the Jensen upgrade route.

I hope I will soon be able to test Jensen power supply
capacitors.

Another really cool example of how the Internet is accelerating
the audio revolution.